About

I’m Lena Weißkichel, a German high performance sailor, coach and teambuilding facilitator based in Long Beach, California.

On the water, I race Foiling A-Class catamarans and F18 catamarans with my husband, Ravi Parent. In 2024 I claimed the women’s title at the F18 Fleet World Championship together with Cam Farrah. In 2026 I skippered Team Aurora, an international 10-woman crew, at the 2026 NYYC International Women’s Championship.

Off the water, I am Programmes Lead at The Magenta Project, a UK charity working toward gender equity and inclusion in the sailing and wider marine industry. I am also a certified LINC Personality Profiler coach, and I work with teams to build cultures where people contribute, learn quickly and perform together despite differences. My motto: We rise by including others.

My long-term goal is to work in sailing and to show other women that they belong in this industry. I bring what I learn on the water into the business world, and I bring what I learn in business back to the boats I am sailing on.

If you would like to talk about sailing, teams or a collaboration, I would love to hear from you: lena.weisskichel@gmail.com

Portfolio

Projects that shaped my work and leadership style:

2026-today

Programmes Lead | The Magenta Project

I lead The Magenta Project’s programme portfolio, reporting to the CEO and working with a small paid team and a large volunteer network.

Female Leadership Development Programmes (IMOCA and The Ocean Race Atlantic)

• IMOCA x The Magenta Project: 6 months of Mentoring by a leader in the IMOCA class combined with a 4-week in person shadowing inside IMOCA teams across Skipper, Team Management and Technical Director pathways; I led candidate placement with the teams and the programme design.
• The Ocean Race Atlantic: A five‑month Mentoring programme (June to October 2026) opening with a two‑day immersion in Alicante, with senior leaders from The Ocean Race as Mentors. I am the participant point of contact and designed the whole programme for Mentees and Mentors.

Inclusive Leadership Development Course

• Designed a six‑module course used across our leadership programmes, built from the inside out: leading as yourself, realistic expectations, psychological safety, activating diverse strengths, belonging, and transfer into a personal leadership identity
• Includes a LINC Personality Profiler and a one‑to‑one coaching session
• Delivered mostly self‑directed on the Mighty Magenta Community Hub, with collaborative exercises and mentee-led sessions

Volunteer Structure and Handbook

• Redesigned how The Magenta Project organises its volunteer network
• Designed the full volunteer lifecycle, from discovery and onboarding through a rotating monthly check‑in call rhythm, mid‑term review, handover and recognition
• Built the supporting toolkit: role descriptions, a Code of Conduct based on The Magenta Project Standards, commitment agreements, a volunteer directory and handover templates
• Wrote the Volunteer Handbook, setting out standards, decision‑making authority and communication guidelines so volunteers can act without asking permission for routine decisions

2026

Skipper of Team Aurora at the NYYC Women’s International Championship

I skippered Team Aurora at the Inaugural NYYC Women’s International Championship in Newport, competing against 19 other teams. Julia Jaynes and I built the team around Magenta Mentees, Alumni and Mentors. Our aims were to give women from countries that had not received an invitation a place on the water, and to give amateur sailors with full-time jobs a platform like the IC37 class.

With five languages on the team and most members working full time, we invested in teambuilding before we invested in time on the boat. Marjoleine Hulshof ran monthly teambuilding sessions and supported me as a mentor and mental coach. Anna Bordovskaya built a digital learning hub. A LINC Teamcheck helped us understand each member’s strengths. We trained together on the water for only 11 days before the event.

Team Aurora was the only team that deliberately chose a diverse line-up. We showed that a diverse team can be competitive, even when we could not train on the water together every month. Our partners and sponsors included Long Beach Yacht Club, Nordika, The Magenta Project, and Jacobsen Pilots. Together with the Sailing Foundation of New York and our GoFundMe supporters, they helped us make the campaign possible.

The event showed me that the sport needs more spaces where everyone’s voice is heard and where the courage to do things differently is welcomed. Team Aurora is one example of what that can look like.

Linda Elias Memorial One Design Challenge

I led a five-week ramp up for a women’s crew with no shared racing history, racing the Linda Elias Memorial One Design Challenge in October 2026. In one month we built a playbook, communication standards, and team charter.

2024-2026

Mentoring Lead | The Magenta Project

I ran The Magenta Project’s flagship 9‑month Mentoring Programme, which pairs 75 Mentees with experienced Mentors across seven Pathways: Inshore, Offshore, Foiling, STEM, Media, Race Management & Support, and Leadership.

• Owned the full programme lifecycle: applications, selection, matching, onboarding, delivery and graduation
• Built the programme’s feedback system, automated with Google Apps Script
• Designed the Mentee curriculum with webinars and networking sessions
• Coordinated a large volunteer network of Mentors and programme volunteers

Having been a Mentee (2021–22) and a Mentor (2023–24) myself, leading the programme felt like coming full circle.

Mighty Magenta Community Hub

• Founded and launched The Magenta Project’s online community, which has grown to 550+ members
• Built dedicated programme spaces and a job board, connecting Mentees, Mentors, Alumni and volunteers in one place

2023-today

Crew | Formula 18 | Team Nacra with Ravi Parent

Goal: Become the first mixed team to win an F18 Fleet World Championship overall.

Not only are we a mixed team with me crewing in a highly physical boat, but we are also husband and wife. This comes with lots of challenges but also keeps things interesting and makes for many learnings and stories that I can use in my keynotes, workshops and coaching!

2023-2024

Mentor | The Magenta Project

Member | belong community for culture design

In 2022 I almost burned out and not from an office job, but from the very sport that I love with great passion! After that I took a bit of a break from sailing and did a lot of research into psychological safety and how to design a team/work/organizational environment/culture that I could thrive in. Meaning: Performing at my personal best for a long time without burning myself out again. In the process I found the belong community by Eva-Maria Zoll and Karim Mustaghni – a great place to learn, exchange and network all things culture design!

In 2025 Karim and I talked on his podcast „The Creativs“ about Flow and Creativity in Sailing. Check out the episode here.

2023

Teambuilding Workshop & Sailing on Lake Constance with an M&A Team from DZ Bank

As a speaker & coach I help corporate organizations build stronger, healthier, happier and more sustainable teams. First we talk about concepts of teambuilding paired with compelling stories from the world of sailing, then we go on the water so the participants can experience the concepts for themselves.

Successful sailing is a lot like professional M&A consulting.

We learned this at the teambuilding event with the Stuttgart M&A team of DZ BANK AG. For example, no two days are the same in the M&A business as well as in sailing. You always have to adapt to new situations (In sailing, we say it’s like playing chess, except that the chessboard gets flipped upside down every now and then). M&A experts at DZ BANK often work on different projects in different teams at the same time – just like many sailors (including me), who are on many different boats and in different teams throughout the season.

This makes me wonder which other industries have parallels with sailing. Which ones can you think of? If you are interested in the topic in more detail, please send me an email.

2023

Crew | Nacra17 | Try Out for LA28

Keynote „Learnings from High Performance Sailing“ at Boot Düsseldorf

Good Stories are what changes people’s minds and what ultimately changes our society. I use my storytelling talent and my experience in producing authentic content to share my experiences and inspire others and especially female sailors to follow their dreams.

2022-2026

Head of Content | Janssen & Team / Perspektiv Consulting GmbH

2022-2024

Ambassador | Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals Ltd

Raising awareness for photo damage & skin cancer.

2022-today

Studying International Management for athletes | University of Applied Sciences Ansbach

2021-2023

Navigator | Clubswan50 | Niramo

• 2023 World Championship 4th
• 2023 Copa del Rey 2nd
• 2021 The Nations Trophy 1^st
• 2021 Copa del Rey 3^rd

2021–2022

Mentee | The Magenta Project

Crew | 49er Fx | Campaign for Paris Olympics 2024

• learned how to build a professional Olympic Sailing Campaign from scratch
• juggled the mental load of being my own manager alongside the physical & mental demands of being an athlete

2021

Skipper/Navigator + Project Initiator | Dehler 30 all female Crew

• helped founding the Offshoreseglerinnen initiative
• Initiation of the @offshoreseglerinnen Instagram Account to give Female German Offshore Sailors a platform
• Rund Bornholm 2^nd

Coming into big boat racing from Olympic sailing I realized how underrepresented women are in the sport (just like in many corporate environments). I wanted to change the narrative by letting bold actions speak. I also wanted to do something that would go beyond my own success in sailing. I wrote an essay on women in sailing as part of my Bachelors program and two articles on my blog. I organized a training and participation in the Round Bornholm Race on a Dehler 30 for 4 female sailors with little racing exposure in these kinds of boats, and our 2^nd place in that race made some big waves! After that I helped found the Offshoreseglerinnen network and facilitated the collaboration between the Float magazine and Offshoreseglerinnen which is now the German stream of the Magenta Project.

To this day this all fuels my motivation to perform well and to be a role model in environments that women are not deemed fit for.

2020–2021

Skipper/CoSkipper | Shorthanded Offshore Sailing

• coached several Dehler 30 owners
• competed in the Silverrudder – Challenge of the Sea (singlehanded)
• Int. German Championship ORC Doublehand 2^nd (1^st Mixed Team)
• Doublehanded Mixed European Championship 5th
• competed in the Baltic 500 Challenge
• Sailing on VO 60s in Rostock with 20 (top) managers from SAP

My first offshore experience was a 30hr doublehanded training in early May 2020 in the Baltic Sea with violent upwind beating during the night. My first race was a week later the Baltic 500. After a windy and freezing cold frontal night with steep waves in the Kattegat and broaching several times which many other competitors avoided by retiring from the race, we could not finish the race due to a design flaw in the boat that saw us with a breaking keel box. But we made the right decision and brought the boat to the next Harbour instead of inflicting further damage on a borrowed boat and entering a dangerous situation. After that my partner was worried that I didn’t want to do any more offshore sailing however, that regatta ignited a big passion in me. I started practicing 20min naps, sailing by myself, boathandling and learned everything that I could find about boat electronics, weather, routing and navigation.

2019

Sailed Laser, 49er FX & VX One in Australia

2018

Crew | Nacra 17 | Ipunkt Sailingteam

Crew | 49er Fx | German Sailing Federation

U23 Junior World Championship 23^rd

2015–2018

Laser Radial | German Sailing Federation

2013–2015

Laser 4.7 | Sailing Federation Lower Saxony

2010–2013

Optimist | Sailing Federation Lower Saxony

2008

started Sailing at Lake Steinhuder Meer